Mead at Home

Mead - an old low-alcohol drink, obtained by fermenting honey. Depending on the type of bee product used, other ingredients, the taste and color of the drink may vary. The strength of the mead varies from 1 to 15 degrees, but is usually in the range of 5-10%. In the old days, they cooked it at home; there is no sense in purchasing it in a store today. Like kvass, it is quite possible to cook it at home, and the modern housewife will cope with the task as well as her grandmothers and great-grandmothers. It is only important to know the recipe and technology of making traditional hop potion from honey.

Cooking Features

On the shelves of stores more and more appears mead. It is made in an assortment of beer factories and similar enterprises. However, in order to cook delicious and zaboristuyu mead, do not need special equipment and outstanding wine-making skills. Mead - one of the simplest alcoholic beverages, which can be prepared at home. Only a bottle or canister with a narrow neck, the volume of which at least 30% higher than the volume used for the preparation of beverages ingredients, will be required. Some hostesses safely cost the usual three-liter banks. A trap is replaced by a rubber glove in which they make a hole with a needle or toothpick to release the gas.

The technology of making mead is simple: they boil honey syrup, cool it, add yeast, wait for the start of fermentation, pour it into the bottle under the hydraulic lock, filter it through a week, bottle it and send it to the fridge. However, this technology has a number of nuances, ignorance of which will doomed a culinary experiment to fail.

The taste of the drink depends on the type of honey taken as a base. The most fragrant drink is obtained from lime and acacia honey. Buckwheat honey gives mead a dark shade and pleasant bitterness in taste.
When cooking honey syrup, be sure to remove the foam, otherwise the mead will come out unclear.
Yeast is added only after the honey base has cooled to 40 degrees. If you put them in a hot drink, they will die, and fermentation will not.
In the tank in which the mead wanders, there should be a place for the gases generated during this process. So they can go out, install a water seal or wear a glove with a narrow hole. Open a bottle or can not leave.
If there is a low temperature in the room (up to 18-20 degrees), then you should not be surprised that fermentation does not start or is sluggish.
It is necessary to strain the finished mead through gauze folded in several layers and store in the refrigerator so that the fermentation process is guaranteed to stop.
To make carbonated mead, some honey is added to the finished drink (1-2 spoons per liter) and left to start the second fermentation. As a result, gas bubbles are formed.
To improve fermentation, hop cones are added to mead, which are sold in pharmacies, sugar, raisins.

Adding berries and spices allows mead to give a new taste, change its shade.

Classic Mead Recipe

Composition:

honey - 0.3 kg;
water - 2 l;
hop cones - 5 g;
pressed yeast - 25 g (it is possible to replace 7 g with dry);
nutmeg, cinnamon - to taste (usually 2-3 g).

Method of preparation:

Boil water, add honey to it. Stir until dissolved. Simmer for 5 minutes. On the surface at this time there will be foam, it needs to be removed.
Remove the pan from the heat, add spices to it, stir. Leave to cool under cover.
When the syrup has cooled to 30-40 degrees, pour the glass. Dissolve the yeast and pour back into the pan with honey broth.
Add hop cones, mix.
Pour into an enamel basin or other container, cover with gauze to block insects from accessing the honey base. Put in a warm, but not bright place. 2-3 times a day, stir to drink sour.
In two days, pour into a glass bottle, close with a water seal. It can be replaced with a rubber glove with a narrow hole made in it. Wait for the fermentation to end. By this time, the water trap will stop “gurgling”, the glove will deflate, and if you bring a lit match to the neck of the bottle, it will not go out.
Strain the mead through the gauze folded in 4-5 layers. Pour it into clean bottles, close them tightly and put them in the refrigerator.

This mead recipe is one of the traditional recipes by which our ancestors brewed the mead. Make a drink at home is now as easy as in the old days.

Carbonated mead with sugar

Composition:

water - 4 l;
honey - 0.5 l;
sugar - 0.5 kg;
baking yeast (pressed) - 100 g.

Method of preparation:

Boil water. Pour half a liter. In the remaining liquid, add a glass of honey and the same amount of sugar. Cook over low heat, stirring until the sweet ingredients dissolve completely. Boil need at least 10 minutes. The foam on the surface is removed necessarily.
In water that was cast in advance, dissolve a glass of sugar and yeast. It is important that before this liquid is cooled to at least 40 degrees. Put the yeast container in a warm place and wait until they “start playing”.
Honey broth cool to approximately 35 degrees, pour into it a solution with yeast, mix well.
Cover the container with mead gauze, leave to ferment for two days. At this time, be sure to mix the mash 2-3 times a day so that it does not acid.
Pour into a glass bottle with a water seal. Keep in a warm room for 4-6 days, while fermentation.
Separate the mead from the sediment, pour it into clean bottles or pour it into jars. For at least 2 weeks (or for a month), place mead in the refrigerator or cellar.
Add the remaining honey, leave at a temperature of about 16-20 degrees for a week. Containers must be plugged at this time.
Strain the drink, bottle, cool.

After that the mead is ready to eat. The process of preparing an old drink for this recipe is quite long, but the result justifies the time spent.

Meat (without yeast and cooking)

Composition:

liquid honey - 1 l;
spring water - 1 l;
raspberry - 0, 5 kg;
strawberries, strawberries or cherries - 1, 5 kg.

Method of preparation:

Wash strawberries or cherries. Cherries are pitted. Put it in the enamel basin.
Raspberry carefully sort out. Do not wash to keep the fermentation bacteria on the surface of the berries. Mash and combine with other berries.
Heat the water slightly, dissolve the honey in it.
Fill with honey base, mix.
Leave in the pelvis, covering it with gauze, for 2-3 days. When the intensive fermentation begins, the foam from the surface must be removed, the mash is filtered.
Pour the drink into bottles, seal it tightly and keep in a dark cool room (at a temperature not higher than 14 degrees) for 4 months. Withstand the drink can not be in glass containers, and in oak barrels, but always in a cold room, to avoid fermentation.

The mead prepared according to this recipe resembles sparkling wine. If the technology is sustained, the result will not disappoint you.

Mead with raisins and lemon

Composition:

lemon - 1 pc .;
water - 2 l;
honey - 0, 2 kg;
flour - 10 g;
wine yeast - 15 g;
raisins - 50 g.

Method of preparation:

Cook the honey syrup, cool to 30 degrees.
Cut the lemons into circles, fold into a bowl, add the raisins to them.
Dissolve flour and yeast in a glass of honey broth, pour lemons and raisins with the mixture.
Add the remaining syrup.
Keep in the pelvis until the beginning of intense fermentation.
Pour into a bottle with a water seal, wait for the fermentation to complete.
Strain, bottle. Store in a cool place or refrigerator.

Mead in this recipe is cooked faster than traditional, has a slightly different taste. Lemons in the recipe can be replaced with a cherry or cranberry. The taste of the drink will change, but it will be no less pleasant.

Medovukha is an old low alcohol drink that is easy to make at home. It refreshes, invigorates, quenches thirst and saturates the body with vitamins. Homemade mead is able to compete with beer and wine.